Interior chief says improved infrastructure can help Calif.'s water woes

E&E News
By Debra Kahn
March 12, 2014

BYRON, Calif. -- Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said yesterday that new water storage projects could help address long-term supply issues in California, if not the current historic drought.

Jewell's remarks came while touring a massive federal water-pumping plant in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the confluence of two of California's largest rivers, after a meeting with agricultural water users who rely on exports from the delta.

The state's drought has abated slightly as a result of rainstorms at the start of the month in coastal and Southern California. The Sierra Nevada, however, which stores snowpack that's delivered as rain over the spring and summer, is still far drier than normal, at 31 percent of average.

"Right now you are facing the most serious drought situation that you've had in historical memory," Jewell said. "This certainly won't be my last visit to California."

President Obama visited the parched Central Valley last month, where he pledged more than $150 million in aid to farmers (Greenwire, Feb. 17). Jewell also stressed federal support, particularly when it comes to helping state and federal agencies manage water deliveries from the delta, which serves 25 million people and 3 million acres of farmland.

"One of the things we can do is be around the table to understand what the issues are and urge our partners from a state and federal level to exercise as much flexibility as they have" in operating the pumps, she said. "The important thing is getting everybody to the table, because Mother Nature has created this drought. This drought is not being created by the Bureau of Reclamation or the state of California."

As the drought has persisted, state and federal officials have floated a number of big ideas to help provide more water in times of low precipitation, beyond the original massive state and federal plumbing projects of the mid-20th century that bring water from rainy Northern California to drier Southern California.

The state's Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which would build two massive tunnels carrying water from the delta to farmers and cities farther south, wouldn't create new water supply beyond the millions of acre-feet already diverted. But it would allow the state to store more in wetter years through increasing the capacity to transport greater volumes.

House Democrats have also introduced bills to expand and build reservoirs. A trio of bills introduced late last month by Rep. Jim Costa of California would expand existing or planned facilities that have long been discussed as potential candidates for increasing the state's water supply, including sites on the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers (E&E Daily, March 4).

Jewell said that new storage is probably needed long term. She cited climate change, which is expected to shift the balance of precipitation to more rain and less snow and cause more variable weather patterns in general.

"I think that there's no question with less water coming down in frozen form being stored in the Sierras and more water coming down in liquid form that storage is going to have to be an important part of the long-term solution," she said. "We are riding on an infrastructure that was built many decades ago, and we are putting more demands on that infrastructure than it was intended to serve.

"We need to understand what those water demand needs are and we need to understand what's necessary with supply, and I suspect that storage will be an important part of it, but it's certainly not a short-term solution," Jewell added. "We also know that this is an earthquake-prone area, and we have to think about our facilities in the context of climate change and the context of potential natural disasters like earthquakes, and that's where long-range planning's going to be very helpful."

Jewell steered clear of making any new pronouncements on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, as a small group of protesters gathered outside the pumping plant holding signs imploring her to "Save the Delta, Stop the Tunnels." A draft version of the plan is being circulated for public comment through mid-June, which would require federal approval under the Endangered Species Act. Opponents say the plan would benefit agricultural interests in the southern part of the state at the expense of endangered fish and other species in the delta by continuing to take water out of the rivers.

"The Bay Delta Conservation Plan has been in the works for many years, and I think it's a plan certainly with controversy, and I have heard from a number of elected officials and folks within the environmental community who are opposed to it," Jewell said.

"There's a lot of unanswered questions in terms of the size of the tunnels, but when you do have major rain events, the ability to capture liquid water when the frozen water through the snowpack is not as high as it once was is important," she continued. "We will continue to evaluate that very seriously through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, but we will also be taking into account the very significant different positions that exist out there with regard to the tunnel plan."